Day One of "Awesome Vacation to Florida"
January 1, 2009

After a measly two hours of sleep from partying and ringing in the New Year with the Dittmers playing Nertz (I kicked butt), Justin and I got a ride to the Tulsa airport from Alex at 4:30 AM. We were the last two people to be called for standby to Dallas, out of about 50 other standby's. We easily got on the small 50 seater to Fort Walton, Florida and landed around 10 AM. We saw some interesting Salvador Dali prints in the airport then picked up our Pontiac rental car. We didn't have the address for the house we were renting, and found out that they were closed, so we called Spencer and got the lock box combination.

We stopped at Target to get a few groceries and ended up staying there for an hour, spending extra time going through the 75% off Christmas goodies. We were paid $10 for a diabetic monitor via a coupon. Arriving at our awesome rental house about 2 blocks from the white sandy beach, we turned up the heat on the house. It was only about 60 degrees today and the house was COLD! We haven't yet been able to figure out how to heat the pool outside, and hope to use the sea kayak this week sometime. We got our stuff put away and then looked at the weather forecast for the next few days to decide if we should nap or go to the beach. It wasn't a tough decision. Although it wasn't too nice and cozy outside, today was going to be the least chance of rain and thunderstorms. Bummer. The sand is amazing. It is so powdery soft and white. Finer than sugar. There are a few shells here and there and the occasional seagull. We experimented with the aperture of our camera, but couldn't seem to get it right.

We walked on a boardwalk through a sand duney/lake area for a long time and meandered our way back to the rental. It's beautiful here. I love the picturesque views and the color of the water. What an amazing *much needed* nap. We slept for a couple of hours and woke up famished and had Dinty Moore canned stew that works our well with my gluten/milk free diet that I'm on right now. It was pretty good, surprisingly.

We just got done watching a little bit of Napoleon Dynamite. That sure is one great movie. I am so happy to be here with Justin. I love him so much, it's making me teary eyed right now. He is an amazing husband and companion and I feel so blessed to have him be my eternal dude. He's my best friend.